ultimatepopculturefandomcom-20200216-history
Arrow (season 8)
| country = United States | num_episodes = 7 | network = The CW | first_aired = | last_aired = | episode_list = List of Arrow episodes }} The eighth and final season of the American television series Arrow premiered on The CW on October 15, 2019, and will consist of 10 episodes. The series is based on the DC Comics character Green Arrow, a costumed vigilante created by Mort Weisinger and George Papp, and is set in the Arrowverse, sharing continuity with other Arrowverse television series. The showrunners for this season are Marc Guggenheim and Beth Schwartz. Stephen Amell stars as Oliver Queen, with principal cast members David Ramsey as John Diggle, Rick Gonzalez as Rene Ramirez, Juliana Harkavy as Dinah Drake and Katie Cassidy as Laurel Lance also returning from previous seasons. They are joined by Katherine McNamara, Ben Lewis, and Joseph David-Jones as the adult versions of Mia Smoak, William Clayton, and Connor Hawke, characters introduced in the flashforwards set in 2040, respectively, who were promoted to series regulars from their recurring status in the seventh season. LaMonica Garrett was promoted to a series regular as the Monitor as well, having previously appeared as a guest actor in the fifth annual Arrowverse crossover and the seventh season. The eighth season is the only one not to feature Emily Bett Rickards as Felicity Smoak in a recurring or main role, although she will appear in a guest role in the series finale. The series follows Oliver Queen, who claimed to have spent five years shipwrecked on Lian Yu, an island in the North China Sea, before returning home to Starling City (later renamed "Star City") to fight crime and corruption as a secret vigilante whose weapon of choice is a bow and arrow. In the eighth season, Oliver will fight in a battle that will have the multiverse hanging in the balance. The series was renewed for its eighth season on January 31, 2019, and filming began in Vancouver, British Columbia, in July 2019. The season features the directorial debut of Cassidy. This season will include the upcoming sixth annual Arrowverse crossover with TV series Supergirl, Batwoman, The Flash, and Legends of Tomorrow. Episodes | ProdCode = T27.13951 | Viewers = 0.84 | ShortSummary = The Monitor sends Oliver Queen to Earth-2 to retrieve Dwarf Star particles, but they are stolen by this Earth's Tommy Merlyn, who is looking to use them to level the Glades with his own version of the "Undertaking". Oliver joins forces with Earth-1 John Diggle as well as Earth-2's Laurel Lance and Adrian Chase to stop Tommy and retrieve the particles. Just as Oliver and Diggle are about to leave, an anti-matter wave suddenly consumes all of Earth-2, barely giving them and Laurel time to escape to Earth-1. In the 2040 flashforwards, Connor Hawke, Mia Smoak, William Clayton, and Zoe Ramirez encounter the Deathstroke Gang, led by Connor's adoptive brother John Diggle "J.J." Jr., who have grown more powerful since the destruction of the wall between Star City and the Glades. | LineColor = 1D1C1A }} | ProdCode = T27.13952 | Viewers = 0.77 | ShortSummary = The Monitor brings Oliver's party to Hong Kong to pick up biophysicist Robert Wong, who was forced to recreate the Alpha/Omega Virus. However, Laurel storms off to get her breach device fixed. While Oliver and Diggle learn more about Wong, Triad members attack them, though Tatsu Yamashiro comes to their aid and reveals she knows of the Monitor. Oliver locates Wong, only for China White to kidnap him. After obtaining a sample of the Alpha/Omega Virus, Oliver arranges a trade with China. While Oliver rescues Wong, Tatsu engages China, who stabs her before Laurel blasts her away. After talking with Tatsu, Oliver plans to get more answers about the Monitor at Nanda Parbat. Elsewhere, Lyla Michaels is revealed to be working with the Monitor as she delivers Wong to him. In the flashforwards, William works on repairing a device obtained from the Deathstroke Gang while Mia, Connor, and Zoe head to a black market where J.J. plans to make a sale. When the Deathstroke Gang arrives, Connor and J.J. enter a parley, though the former's group is forced to let the latter leave when he reveals that he had his men raid the bunker. | LineColor = 1D1C1A }} | ProdCode = T27.13953 | Viewers = 0.76 | ShortSummary = Oliver heads to Nanda Parbat to gain more information on the Monitor from Talia al Ghul, where he reunites with his sister Thea and fills her in on his impending death. Oliver, Thea, and Talia plan to retrieve an ancient textbook, but are ambushed by Athena and the League of Assassins. The trio narrowly manage to escape and eventually find the book; learning that the Monitor may actually be causing the oncoming crisis rather than preventing it. Meanwhile, Diggle and Lyla track down Farzad Qadir, who is holding a mother and son captive. As the two free the captives and kill Qadir in the process, Diggle learns that the boy's name is Connor. In the flash-forwards, William managed to escape from the Deathstroke Gang through a trapdoor in the bunker. He discovers their next plan, but it is interrupted by Mia, Connor, and Zoe. J.J. defeats Mia, but when Zoe attacks him, he kills her. Connor beats J.J. down in a rage, but before he can kill him, Connor, William, and Mia are mysteriously teleported to the 2019 bunker where they meet Oliver, Dinah, Rene, and Diggle. | LineColor = 1D1C1A }} | ProdCode = T27.13954 | Viewers = 0.62 | ShortSummary = Future and Present Team Arrow meet without knowing how the former traveled to the present. Mia and Connor choose to keep details of their time a secret from the others, but William anticipates that they will soon become suspicious. Meanwhile, Grant Wilson leads an army as the new Deathstroke to destroy Star City. After Mia and Connor mistake Grant for a time-displaced J.J., they are confronted by Present Team Arrow. William and Connor admit what happens in their time; including how J.J. becomes Grant's successor and murders Zoe. Diggle and Rene are left devastated yet determined to change their respective children's fates. The two teams work together to stop Grant, and he is arrested. Curtis tells Oliver that the Russian Armed Forces have schematics and components to build an anti-matter weapon. Diggle reconciles with Connor. Laurel and Dinah, intrigued by their future selves' actions, make plans to form the Canaries earlier than expected. Rene begins his campaign in the Glades. Oliver begins to be a father to Mia. Later that night, the Monitor makes a deal with Laurel; promising to restore Earth-2 if she betrays Oliver. | LineColor = 1D1C1A }} | ProdCode = T27.13955 | Viewers = 0.74 | ShortSummary = Oliver learns that their next target is Russian general Alexi Burov, who is working on a pulse wave generator weapon that requires plutonium. Oliver takes William, Mia and Laurel to steal the weapon plans. Laurel discovers that Lyla is working with the Monitor, who she also agrees to work with by stealing the weapon plans before Oliver. Oliver seeks assistance from Anatoly Knyazev to lead him to Burov, who explains he had abandoned the plans, though he has them stored on a hard drive. Burov requests a trade – a cage match for the drive in the Bloodbath, which Oliver accepts. Afterwards, the Bratva led by Oleg intervene and fatally shoot Burov before taking the team captive until Laurel and Anatoly come to free them with William's help. The team then successfully retrieve the drive and celebrate their victory before returning to Star City. Meanwhile, Diggle recruits a reluctant Roy Harper on a heist for plutonium. Following the heist, Roy decides to stay in Star City to help the team against the Monitor. Later that night, Laurel declines Lyla's offer to join her mission as Oliver and Diggle discover Lyla's betrayal, only to get tranquilized. | LineColor = 1D1C1A }} | ProdCode = T27.13956 | Viewers = 0.79 | ShortSummary = Oliver wakes up in Star City, where he arrives at a gala to find a living Quentin Lance as mayor. When mercenaries take the Star City Police Department hostage and demand to speak to the mayor, Quentin agrees to their terms as Oliver takes down the mercenaries; only for their leader to set off a bomb. Oliver wakes up in the same position with Laurel suffering the same effect. Each attempt to stop the bomb results in Quentin's death. While Laurel passed her test of coming to terms with Quentin's death, Oliver is told by Lyla that he must work through fate to get through this. After a talk with Quentin, Oliver goes through a reset and allows Quentin to meet his fate. Afterwards, Lyla returns and states that he has passed the Monitor's test by allowing Quentin to have his final moments. In addition, she also states that the Monitor was the one brought William, Mia, and Connor to the present. Oliver and Laurel wake up in a tent on Lian Yu and are soon accompanied by Diggle, William, Mia, and Connor for their final mission. | LineColor = 1D1C1A }} | ProdCode = T27.13957 | Viewers = 0.83 | ShortSummary = The team learns that Lian Yu has been giving off an immense amount of strange energy and Lyla tasks William with creating a weapon to harness it, while the plutonium is being transported by Dinah, Rene and Roy. Upon arrival, their plane is shot down by a missile and crash lands on the island. Diggle, Lyla, and Connor rescue Dinah and Rene, while Oliver and Laurel retrieve the plutonium. However, they are confronted by Edward Fyers, Billy Wintergreen and Yao Fei – deceased figures from Oliver's past who were all revived by the island's supernatural energy. Meanwhile, Diggle's party finds Roy, whose right arm is pinned; forcing Connor to amputate him, after William completes the weapon, Lyla activates it and transforms; absorbing the island's energy and causing it's revived inhabitants to disappear before entering a portal. She later returns, now calling herself a "harbinger of things to come", and informs Oliver and Mia that the Crisis has begun as the sky turns red. | LineColor = 1D1C1A }} | OriginalAirDate = | ProdCode = | Viewers = | ShortSummary = s special episode}} | LineColor = 1D1C1A }} | DirectedBy = James Bamford | WrittenBy = Beth Schwartz, Marc Guggenheim, Jill Blankenship, and Oscar Balderrama | OriginalAirDate = | ProdCode = | Viewers = | ShortSummary = The episode will serve as a backdoor pilot for a potential spin-off series titled Green Arrow and the Canaries, starring Katherine McNamara, Katie Cassidy, and Juliana Harkavy. | LineColor = 1D1C1A }} | DirectedBy = James Bamford | WrittenBy = Marc Guggenheim & Beth Schwartz | OriginalAirDate = | ProdCode = T27.13960 | Viewers = | ShortSummary = | LineColor = 1D1C1A }} }} Cast and characters Main * Stephen Amell as Oliver Queen / Green Arrow * David Ramsey as John Diggle / Spartan * Juliana Harkavy as Dinah Drake / Black Canary * Rick Gonzalez as Rene Ramirez / Wild Dog * LaMonica Garrett as Mar Novu / the Monitor * Katherine McNamara as adult Mia Smoak * Ben Lewis as adult William Clayton * Joseph David-Jones as adult Connor Hawke * Katie Cassidy as Laurel Lance / Black Canary (Earth-2) |name=|group=}} Recurring * Audrey Marie Anderson as Lyla Michaels / Harbinger * Charlie Barnett as adult John Diggle Jr. * Andrea Sixtos as adult Zoe Ramirez * Willa Holland as Thea Queen * Colton Haynes as Roy Harper / Arsenal * Paul Blackthorne as Quentin Lance Guest * Colin Donnell as Tommy Merlyn / Dark Archer (Earth-2) * Josh Segarra as Adrian Chase / the Hood (Earth-2) * John Barrowman as Malcolm Merlyn (Earth-2) * Susanna Thompson as Moira Queen (Earth-2) * Rila Fukushima as Tatsu Yamashiro * Kelly Hu as China White * Lexa Doig as Talia al Ghul * Kyra Zagorsky as Athena * Echo Kellum as Curtis Holt * Jamie Andrew Cutler as Grant Wilson / Deathstroke * Venus Terzo as Elisa Schwartz * David Nykl as Anatoly Knyazev * Barry Levy as Alexi Burov * Yurij Kis as Oleg * Sebastian Dunn as Edward Fyers * Byron Mann as Yao Fei Gulong * Bitsie Tulloch as Lois Lane * Emily Bett Rickards as Felicity Smoak Production Development On January 31, 2019, The CW renewed Arrow for an eighth season. On March 6, 2019, it was announced that it would be the final season of the series, with an abbreviated ten-episode order. Stephen Amell, who stars as Oliver Queen / Green Arrow, had approached series co-creator Greg Berlanti towards the end of the sixth season about "moving on" following the expiration of his contract at the end of the seventh season. He had hoped that the series could continue without him, but Berlanti and showrunners Marc Guggenheim and Beth Schwartz decided to conclude the series with a shortened eighth season, which Amell agreed to. Berlanti, Guggenheim and Schwartz released a press statement saying, "This was a difficult decision to come to, but like every hard decision we’ve made for the past seven years, it was with the best interests of Arrow in mind ... We're heartened by the fact that Arrow has birthed an entire universe of shows that will continue on for many years to come. We're excited about crafting a conclusion that honors the show, its characters and its legacy and are grateful to all the writers, producers, actors, and – more importantly – the incredible crew that has sustained us and the show for over seven years." Speaking at San Diego Comic-Con ahead of the season premiere, Guggenheim commented on the difficulty of approaching the final season without Emily Bett Rickards, who made the decision to step away from her role as Felicity Smoak at the end of the seventh season. He stated that "for the longest time, I've been saying you can't do the show without Emily Rickards. And I think, if the show – if the conversations had been, 'we'll do 22 episodes without Emily,' I would've said, 'you can't do that'", and that the shorter ten-episode run, combined with the crossover, made the prospect feel "a little more realistic". Writing As with the seventh season of Arrow, the eighth season makes extensive use of flashforwards. Stephen Amell revealed that, unlike the serialized approach of previous seasons, this one would follow a more episodic approach due to the limited number of episodes. Katie Cassidy, who plays Laurel Lance, supported Amell's claim, saying each episode would feel like a "miniature movie". SDCC 2019 |date=July 20, 2019 |website=Entertainment Weekly |at=From 5:45 to 6:07 |via=YouTube |access-date=July 23, 2019}} The penultimate episode, which serves as a backdoor pilot to Green Arrow and the Canaries was originally intended to be titled after the Bruce Springsteen song "Livin' in the Future", continuing the series' tradition of having the penultimate episode of every season titled after a Springsteen song. Because the studio mandated that the backdoor pilot be titled after the planned spin-off series, the writers were forced to scrap the original title. Casting Main cast members Stephen Amell, David Ramsey, Rick Gonzalez, Juliana Harkavy and Katie Cassidy return as Oliver Queen / Green Arrow, John Diggle, Rene Ramirez, Dinah Drake and Earth-2's Laurel Lance respectively. Following the announcement that she would be leaving the series at the end of its seventh season, this will be the first and only season not to feature Emily Bett Rickards, who portrayed Felicity Smoak, as either a recurring or main cast member, although the producers left open the possibility of her making a guest appearance in the final season. Rickards appears as Felicity through archive footage in the episode "Welcome to Hong Kong". In November 2019, Amell confirmed that Rickards would return for the series finale. In June 2019, Joseph David-Jones, who recurred in the seventh season as the adult version of Connor Hawke, was promoted to the main cast, and that July Katherine McNamara and Ben Lewis were also promoted to regular status in their roles as the adult versions of Mia Smoak and William Clayton respectively. It was also announced that former series regulars Colin Donnell, Josh Segarra, John Barrowman and Susanna Thompson would reprise their roles as Tommy Merlyn, Adrian Chase, Malcolm Merlyn and Moira Queen in a guest capacity. In August, it was announced that Colton Haynes, who portrayed Roy Harper as a series regular in the seventh season, would not return with the same status, though Schwartz stated that she hoped to have him back in some capacity. Haynes said he did not exit the season, but that he was "not asked to come back for the final season as a series regular", and added that Roy is "never gone for too long". In September, it was announced that Willa Holland would return as Thea Queen in a recurring role, after departing as a regular in the sixth season and returning as a guest star in the seventh. In the same month, Charlie Barnett was cast in the role of the adult version of John Diggle Jr. In October, it was announced that Haynes would appear in the season in a recurring role. In November, it was announced that Paul Blackthorne would return as Quentin Lance in a recurring role, after departing as a regular in the sixth season and returning as a guest star in the seventh. Design In July 2019, a new Green Arrow costume was unveiled on the Entertainment Weekly magazine cover. A new Spartan costume was revealed by Guggenheim and a new Black Canary costume was revealed in the season's first trailer. Filming Filming began on July 11, 2019, and lasted until November 13. The season's third episode, "Leap of Faith", marks Cassidy's directorial debut. On October 21, filming for the ninth episode, the backdoor pilot for Green Arrow and the Canaries, began. Arrowverse tie-ins In December 2018, during the end of the annual crossover "Elseworlds", a follow-up crossover – titled "Crisis on Infinite Earths" and based on the comic book series of the same name – was announced. The crossover will take place over five episodes – three in December 2019 and two in January 2020. Broadcast The season premiered on October 15, 2019, in the United States on The CW. Additionally, The CW will air a retrospective to "celebrate the eighth season", to precede the series finale. Reception Critical response The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reports a 97% approval rating for the eighth season, with an average rating of 8.15/10 based on 47 reviews. Ratings | title2 = Welcome to Hong Kong | date2 = October 22, 2019 | rs2 = 0.3/2 | viewers2 = 0.77 | dvr2 = 0.2 | dvrv2 = 0.65 | total2 = 0.5 | totalv2 = 1.42 | title3 = Leap of Faith | date3 = October 29, 2019 | rs3 = 0.3/2 | viewers3 = 0.76 | dvr3 = 0.2 | dvrv3 = 0.59 | total3 = 0.5 | totalv3 = 1.35 | title4 = Present Tense | date4 = November 5, 2019 | rs4 = 0.2/1 | viewers4 = 0.62 | dvr4 = 0.3 | dvrv4 = 0.65 | total4 = 0.5 | totalv4 = 1.27 | title5 = Prochnost | date5 = November 19, 2019 | rs5 = 0.2/1 | viewers5 = 0.74 | dvr5 = | dvrv5 = | total5 = | totalv5 = | title6 = Reset | date6 = November 26, 2019 | rs6 = 0.3/1 | viewers6 = 0.79 | dvr6 = | dvrv6 = | total6 = | totalv6 = | title7 = Purgatory | date7 = December 3, 2019 | rs7 = 0.3/2 | viewers7 = 0.83 | dvr7 = | dvrv7 = | total7 = | totalv7 = }} Notes References }} Category:Arrow (TV series) seasons Category:2019 American television seasons